Galaxy S5 Download Booster Exclusive to T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular

Who wouldn’t want to be able to leverage the power of both 4G LTE and Wi-Fi at once for faster downloads? Well, apparently AT&T, Sprint and Verizon aren’t fans of the concept, as they’ve decided to omit the feature from the new Galaxy S5.

The good news is that Samsung confirmed to us that both T-Mobile and U.S. Cellular will offer the Download Booster function on its S5 devices. Download Booster is designed to let you tap LTE and Wi-Fi simultaneously, which Samsung claims will dramatically speed up downloads. We’re talking an 80 to 90 percent improvement.

So why do three out of the four big U.S. carriers refuse to support Download Booster? Perhaps they don’t want their customers taxing their strained networks for huge files when that job could be offloaded to a home network or hotspot.

Meanwhile, T-Mobile lists Download Booster as among the Galaxy S5’s top six features on its website, saying that it will assist with downloads. U.S. Cellular doesn’t seem to list Download Booster on its S5 product page, but Samsung confirmed that it would be the second carrier to offer the perk.

It’s not as if Galaxy S5 shoppers don’t have anything else to be excited about. In our in-depth Galaxy S5 review, we praised the device for its bright and colorful 5.1-inch display, sharper camera and longer battery life. The design is also water resistant.

However, we’d love to see a Verizon-powered Galaxy S5 combine the speed of the provider’s souped-up AWS network with Wi-Fi. After all, the carrier won both our New York and San Francisco 4G showdowns. Here’s hoping AT&T, Sprint and Verizon eventually cave.

Responsible for the editorial vision for Laptop Mag and Tom's Guide, Mark Spoonauer has been Editor in Chief of LAPTOP since 2003 and has covered technology for nearly 15 years. Mark speaks at key tech industry events and makes regular media appearances on CNBC, Fox and CNN. Mark was previously reviews editor at Mobile Computing, and his work has appeared in Wired, Popular Science and Inc.